The Questions Breaking Bad Won’t Answer

The show dramatizes the plight of middle-class men, but only reinforces the Drug War's conventional wisdom.

Walt White and Breaking Bad should’ve ended before now. This season has felt somehow anticlimactic despite its customary excellence. Despite itself, the show has fallen off in last couple of years, getting cutesy, meta, and self-referential, as happens with programs that become institutions.

It could be a lot worse. Breaking Bad could’ve kept going—like Cheers or Frasier, or like Mad Men, descending into solipsism and self-parody. With its last 8 episodes set to start on AMC this month, however, it is worthwhile to take a look at where the show started, where it went, where it is going, and what it all means.

When Vince Gilligan’s show started five years ago, there were many questions. The first of them—posed by seemingly everyone who saw the previews or the first few episodes—was how in the heck the dad from Malcolm in the Middle would work in a dramatic role. There are no longer questions about the dramatic chops of Bryan Cranston—his character’s arc and the masterful way he projected humor, pathos, depth, and self-awareness have obliterated those attempts at armchair typecasting and sealed his reputation as one of the stronger small-screen actors of the current century.

Cranston’s performance made the show work week after week, as it built an audience and garnered critical plaudits. From the first episodes in Season 1, where a nebbishy Walter White labored in obscurity as the most milquetoast high-school chemistry teacher ever, and as a car wash peon when school was out, the show told a complex story: one of its protagonists effectively being destroyed by circumstance—his job, his cancer, his dessicated domestic life, his zeta-male status in comparison to Hank, his DEA superstar brother-in-law, so aptly played by Dean Norris.

Then, as fans of the show know so well, Walter White reinvented himself as “Heisenberg,” producing crystal meth that was both a commercial and an artistic achievement. As we saw so memorably in Al Pacino’s “Scarface,” the show managed to turn a drug producer into a heroic figure. Yet as the show gained popularity, narrative decisions that had seemed jarring and iconoclastic became more predictable—even when they seemed like outliers, as when Walt lived and his cartel boss, the understatedly sociopathic Gus Fring (who, in one of the show’s more effective ironic touches in its early seasons, was a pillar of the community and a friend to law enforcement) was killed. It somehow didn’t surprise that Walt lived as, despite everything, the show’s clear focus has been the eternal conflict between Hank and Walt.

“The past is the past,” he tells Jesse in a new episode. “Nothing can change what we’ve done. But now that’s over… there is nothing left for us to do except to try to live ordinary, decent lives.”

What are “ordinary, decent lives”? Everyone has an opinion on what the show ultimately means—critics conflate being fans of the show with having reasons to draw larger lessons, such as the writer from Time who described Breaking Bad as “the most moral show on television,” or the writer from Bloomberg who posits that “through Walt’s increasingly unhinged management style, Breaking Bad creator and executive producer Vince Gilligan has offered a riveting critique of professional leadership.”

Riveting, perhaps. But as much as the show is loved by a certain swath of the American population at this point, it is entirely sensible to wonder if it will have true staying power, or if the appeal will fade once the show is off the air, “Breaking Bad” itself being a function of its age. One could see it, a decade or two hence, being as unwatchable and dated as things like Twin Peaks or Pulp Fiction—works that were cultural signposts in their day, but have held up about as well as Bush/Quayle ‘92 stickers. At this point, no one cares about the question “Who Killed Laura Palmer?” Likewise, it is easy to imagine, in 2033, no one caring about Walter White.

That said, questions remain about the show—fertile ground for analysis. What did Walter White’s odyssey really signify? And what points did the show make about our nation’s perpetual war on its own citizens, as manifested in the Drug War?

When Breaking Bad first aired in 2008, the United States economy seemed to be in free fall. Those were the days of the bailout package, and Walter White looked every bit the personification of the beleaguered middle class. Cuckolded in the bedroom with a wife who clearly sought more of an alpha male, his bills far exceeding any reasonable expectations of his ability to pay them, White in the pilot episode seemed like the kind of guy who would slap an Obama ‘08 sticker on his car and hold his hands skyward, looking for Hope and Change.

What happened to Walter White? Capitalism, in its purest form. His entrance into the meth trade, and his effective cornering of the market by dint of producing a superior product, was worthy of an Ayn Rand hero. As was his asceticism—his refusal to indulge in the product, or to let Jesse Pinkman, his former-student-turned-meth-mentor-turned-lab-assistant, “get high on his own supply.” That asceticism would not, could not last forever—witness acts of charity like paying his brother-in-law’s medical bills, or buying his son a Dodge muscle car —because ultimately Walt didn’t want to be a kingpin so much as he wanted to live one of those “ordinary, decent lives” that he’d been denied for so long. The trouble is that the “ordinary, decent life” for White is a sham.

Ordinary, decent lives mean never being the alpha male, never holding the reins of power. They mean that things go well enough until they don’t—until the cancer sets in, or the divorce papers are served, or until the stocks sink, or until the layoffs are announced. Walt White wanted an “ordinary, decent life” of quiet desperation, perhaps, but no worries about money. The fact that he had to teach and to work at a car wash while his wife worked a corporate job just so that they could afford a middle-class life in Albuquerque is significant. Fifty years ago, with the currency holding real value, such contortions would not have been necessary. Now? They are. That brings us to why the character of Walt White is so compelling.

American men of a certain age know the game is over, the one whose rules prevailed from the end of World War II until sometime between Altamont and the last days of disco. It may still be possible to live in a small town and to make ends meet on one breadwinner’s income, even while managing to save in the process. But in a city, even a city as unremarkable as the New Mexico setting of this show, it is nigh impossible. Never mind what happens when a seemingly terminal disease is diagnosed.

The next 8 episodes of Breaking Bad will resolve many of the show’s questions, and—if the last five years of the show are any indication—pose new ones. The most important questions a show framed around the drug trade looks likely to leave unanswered, however, are the moral questions of the drug war itself: can drugs actually be prohibited at all? and does government have the moral mandate to enforce such prohibition?

Part of the reason for that shortcoming is that the show’s focus on meth means that there are no side arguments such as those revolving around marijuana and “medical use”—there will be no medical professionals agitating for the safe use of meth anytime soon, nor will there be meth heads positioned to look sympathetic in the media. And “Breaking Bad,” for all of its studied ambiguity, rarely gave the users anything approaching agency or even common sense.

For all of its counter-culture cred, Breaking Bad is an exponent of conventional wisdom. The DEA are the de facto good guys, fighting a war against the forces of anarchy and social dislocation. The producers of the taboo substance are evil at their core, even though what they are doing could be framed as a rational response to market forces. Those who are going into these last eight episodes looking for a more complex message than “crime doesn’t pay, at least not in the long run” likely will be disappointed.

The show’s iconography will linger, especially for people (white males between the ages of 25-44, or thereabouts) who live vicariously through this and similar shows, leading their own lives of quiet desperation. But Breaking Bad is ultimately a tease, employing its rebel iconography to uphold the values of mainstream media culture, presented in a sponsor-friendly format and produced in cooperation with the Obama Drug Enforcement Administration.

His temper and ego got him pushed out of the lucrative Gray Matter company he co-founded. He wound up a low-paid, public high school chemistry teacher and car wash attendant who was going to die of cancer and leave his family impoverished.

Because he had no real power, all those darker elements of his personality were supressed, if only to keep him from looking even more ridiculous and impotent in the eyes of friends and family.

He refused charity from the people who he felt betrayed him. He decided that he was going to die or survive, but either way, he was going to do it his way.

But with the meth…with the meth he built something that was all his, and he controlled everything and everyone who stepped inside his circle. And those horrible traits that always existed within him were allowed to bloom and infest, like bacteria dropped into a pool of warm sugar water.

It was never about making a “superior” product to meet market demands. It was about control and manipulation. It was, as it always was with Walt, getting credit for his genius.

Now I just started watching the show, and am half way into season two. So far I have seen little aside from Bryan Cranston’s acting that was revolutionary. On the whole the show is entertaining, and I like the idea of the middle aged, as you say, zeta-male “breaking bad.” I like the idea of an anti-hero, though this is not exactly that, but it closer to it than much of the shows out there.

Overall I have found the story engaging, and though Walter is the main protagonist, I find myself wondering what will happen to Jesse Pinkman in the end. He seems so reluctant to get ahead in the business, so afraid to take chances, yet when he does he loves the rush of success. He hates to hurt anyone but he wants the ‘street cred’ that he gets from it. I know a lot of people who could fit into a Jesse type character, almost as if they are afraid of success. My biggest wonder for him is will he be redeemed in some way, because it is clearly obvious that he wants to be accepted by his parents and he wants to be looked up to in some way. But that remains to be seen.

Anyway, great article, and you even did it without anything that would spoil it for me =P

This essay makes a number of errors. On a minor point, “Pulp Fiction” does not look dated. The story structure, the dialogue, the music – watching it again, almost 20 years later, is a welcome shot of adrenaline after the predictability of most Hollywood pics, even the “serious” ones.

What makes Walter White such a compelling character is that he can right himself several times throughout the series, but chooses not to do so. His most honest assessment of himself was when asked if he was in the meth business or the money business, he replied, “I’m in the empire business.”

As for Hank being the alpha male, we know that was largely a fraud. So long as he could hide behind his badge, he was a tough guy against a bunch teen dealers. When faced with some scary Mexican cartels, who greeted him with a severed head on an exploding turtle, he crumbled. Given that Walter was practically waving his secret life in front of his face, we can gather that Hank is not terribly smart either. But, given that advancement in the DEA or other federal law enforcement is not based on skill, but how long you stick around, the show indicts a wasteful bureaucracy. Remember, the entire ABQ branch did not know Gus was the central figure in the meth business. That hardly suggests the writers looked on the DEA with any favor or admiration.

Returning to Walter, you are right that his anger at his circumstances can be shared by many viewers, even those of us who are not 50-something white guys who are aces at chemistry. Most shows featuring villains rarely show where the villains originate from. Breaking Bad did so in a way that most entertainment cannot dream of doing.

This article criticizes “Breaking Bad” for implying that meth dealers are bad guys and law enforcement agents are good guys. I know it’s very fashionable to bash “the drug war,” and there may indeed be a good case for legalization of marijuana, but this article simply does not take seriously the devastating impact that meth has had on so many communities. It is a force of destruction and social dislocation, not some harmless recreational drug. Therefore, the decision to make a living by dealing meth is not a moral choice; it’s a choice to make money by wreaking people’s lives with addiction. On that point, the “conventional wisdom” is correct.

“the show managed to turn a drug producer into a heroic figure.” “Cuckolded in the bedroom with a wife who clearly sought more of an alpha male” “The fact that he had to teach and to work at a car wash while his wife worked a corporate job” Have you watched the show? Walter heroic? He’s an incompetent, consistently having to cover for stupid mistakes (telling Hank after too much wine that he bets Heisenberg is still out there, constantly overplaying his hand with Gus). It grates him when Walter Junior’s website is being used to launder his money, because he can’t take credit for it. He lets Jesse’s girlfriend die, he poisons Jesse’s other girlfriend’s child. He has fooled himself into thinking he can somehow stay clean in the dirty business of meth (and the drug war is another discussion I won’t get into). The guy’s an asshole, plain and simple, totally unsympathetic. Also, he’s not cuckolded at the beginning of the series, and his wife is totally supportive in his battle with cancer, nor does she begin working until a couple seasons in.

As another comment mentioned, Pulp Fiction does not feel dated. As someone who was five years old when it was released, I feel pretty confident in saying that it has never, on any viewing felt dated in any significant way. Sure, in some ways it is dated, in vocal patterns and lingo for instance or in contemporary cultural reference points for instance, but so is all fiction.

Twin Peaks is also a fantastic show. My roommate is watching it for the first time and utterly engrossed by it. Yes, pop cultural commonplaces like “Who killed Laura Palmer” might no longer make sense, but that doesn’t make the actual work of fiction less engrossing. I’m sure readers of Dickens wondered who Pip’s secret benefactor was when it was being published – that we all know it was the escaped convict doesn’t make Great Expectations any worse.

For others reading this, there might be Spoilers below, depending on how sensitive you are. Fair warning.

Also, if you think the story amounts to “Get in the drug game, become evil,” then I’m not sure you’re watching the same show. Jesse Pinkman hasn’t been corrupted by the game. Really, neither was Mike Erhmentraut or Gale Boetticher. They might have done bad things, but I don’t think the show presents them as bad people. And even if you assert that it does, it doesn’t depict them as bad the way Gus Fring or Walter White are.

Someone above in the comments said that Walter White’s power has allowed the evil within him to come pouring out. That is absolutely true. The most damning thing the show seems to say about capitalism is that it allows one’s true self to come to the forefront. Walter White was always incredibly vainglorious and ambitious. His discussion in the first half of Season 5 where he discusses the business he and two friends started and then sold is a great example of this – his pride kept him from success and power and he cannot even realize this. In some ways, Walter White is worse than Gus Fring. Gus seemed to be content to be a chicken magnate and secret kingpin. Walter needs everyone to know that he is a genius.

While I have seen several episodes of “Breaking Bad”, I do not consider myself a fan of the series. Walter’s predicament serves as a reminder to all of us that in the end survival and personal fulfillment are among the most important motivating factors in human behavior. Although most traditionalists don’t like to admit it, many people view morality as a way for the powerful to lord over and control the unwashed in society. Anarchists and devoted Marxists have consistently viewed bourgeois morality in this way. Walter faced a dilemma in his life: does he continue to adhere to the norms of society or does he use his talents to provide for his family. Walter is not a self-absorbed sociopath, he is a frustrated man who uses his talents as a chemistry teacher to provide for his family.

Walter has to make a choice: obey the laws on drugs or provide for the needs of his family. Some of the commentators have suggested that he what he is doing is immoral because he is ruining the lives of the people who use the drugs he is cooking in his lab. But this ignores the dirty secret about drugs: most of the people using drugs are not innocent people who were tricked into using the substances by evil drug pushers. On the contrary, they were people who were seeking ways to get high, to tame the demons inside them, or to escape to a drug-addled alternate reality. Walter might respond to his detractors that he is only providing a product to a willing consumer.

Drugs have been a scourge on our society for decades, and crystal-meth is among the most destructive of drugs. However, we need to remind ourselves that drugs have only been illegal in the United States since the Harrison Narcotics Control Act of 1914, as I recall. Prior to that, drugs such as cocaine and opiates were frequently used as home remedies. Walter may have come to the same conclusion that many would have: if I don’t cook the crystal-meth, someone else will; so why shouldn’t I be allowed to provide for the welfare of my family by making use of my expertise in chemistry.

I would strongly argue against the idea that Hank is not smart. In fact, he’s extremely smart, and unusually perceptive. His perceptiveness, however, is weakened when it comes to looking at his own family–he has a soft spot for the people he cares about. His usually harsh reaction towards crime is lessened against his wife, who is a kleptomaniac, and he refuses to see the clear evidence that Walter is Heisenberg because he is loyal to him.

At least part of what is intriguing about Breaking Bad, at least for me, is that it critique’s the broader culture’s libertarian philosophy. There are a lot of nods to libertarianism throughout the series (Gale Boetticher can be seen sporting a Ron Paul sticker), and I think it matches the encompassing theme as well.

The essence of libertarianism is that everyone should be allowed to do as they like as long as they aren’t hurting anyone else. I see Walter White as a personification of that principle. Getting into the meth business should be perfectly acceptable in libertarian ideology – after all, the participants are voluntary. Everyone makes a choice.

What the storyline shows is that despite the fact that Walter is only making choices for himself, those choices have very real consequences for everyone else around him. His evil does not only destroy himself, but it damages everyone around him. Hardly any of his choices were made in a way that was meant to directly harm anyone (at least according to liberal morality) – meth addicts chose to use his product. The people he kills for the most part made choices to be part of it, and those who didn’t were collateral damage. Libertarianism (and cultural liberalism generally) doesn’t address this. It sees everyone as being perfectly responsible for their own life and nothing more.

The point of the show isn’t “drugs are bad.” The point is “The choices you make effect other people.” Modern culture abhors the notion that people are anything but unencumbered individuals making choices for themselves and no one else. That’s what makes it counter cultural.

I am always quite surprised when get audiences on so may contrived narratives.

But in all of these commets what stood out ad perhaps it’s just bait — the plight of the middle class white men having to weigh drug production and distribution against payig the bills.

As though somehow this justifies dealing a drug which is couter productive to life itself. But for the last three weeks or so we have bee treated to quite a unhealthy dose of black thuggery much associated with dealing drugs. Am I to uderstad that there is more sympathy for the rural production an sale of meth as a economic alterative as opposed to some inner city dealer producer and supplier of cocaine? So the white HS school teacher is in an economic bind via ucontrollable circumstaces and the ier city dealer is supposed to be content to worlk at McDonalds.

Some anti-heros work, but the level of hyprocrisy in this story line is unsettling that and other reasons made it hard for me to buy into —- though popular ad everyoe seems to ask what episode I saw last —

And what have seen are poerful performaces.

As for the a anti climactic ending — that’s too bad. There are a lot of successful meth dealers, lest Portlad Oregon would have othing to talk about.

“Pulp Fiction” isn’t dated. If anything, it makes the schlocky movies that are still, 20 years later, trying to duplicate its seemingly effortless schtick look even more silly than they are.

Having said that, your observation that the resolution of BB is likely to be of the “crime doesn’t pay” variety is well-taken, and almost certainly true. Nihilistic as Walter White is/became, he can’t be allowed to survive.

It seems to me to be a form of moral schizophrenia, in a society which so severely punishes drug use except that profited from by corporations, to proffer entertainment that allows a kind of vicarious enjoyment of the vilest of criminal behavior.

I found it unwatchable. But then, I find a whole lot else about the fraying moral transformation of America, from its leadership on down, to be profoundly discomfiting.

Who views morality that way except antagonists to it — as you name Marxists, and anarchists?

Religion historically has been more used as a weapon against the wealthy and powerful than against the poor. Early Christian saints were martyrs to the politics Roman Empire. The Catholic Church supported peasant rebellions against kings and excommunicated others who acted cruelly. Judaism has stories about resistance against the Greeks, because the Greeks considered practice of their religion a threat. Buddhists in China were killed in protest of the government.

And the same can be said of morality in general. French Revolutionaries used the example of aristocratic decadence to rally their cause. Its true, revolutionaries tried to attack established religion, but at the same time upholding a strict standard of morals — in the name of “civic virtue,” Robspierre executed prostitutes and drunks along with aristocrats. Eventually, the tide of the revolution was held back by peasants, who liked religion. Modern conservatives have pointed to decadence in entertainment and academia.

The poor tend to be the most religious. This is why blacks and hispanics are the most likely in America to attend church and be socially conservative. Whites, who are well-off, are more inclined to skip religious service and be socially liberal.

And in fact, blacks and hispanics as a group are more likely to support the drug war and gun control, because they deal with the actual problems created by criminals in their community and think in a concrete perspective, while whites, who are distant from the problems of crime, are more likely to think from an abstract perspective, and get on the podium and speak against the “war on drugs.”

Morality is in my view is properly a personal tool for self-betterment, and not really a social tool. But where it has been a social tool, its often been used by the poor against the wealthy. The “lumpenproletariat” are a minority within the lower class.

“as unwatchable and dated as things like Twin Peaks”
What! Check your Netflix: “Twin Peaks” is one of the most popular TV shows there is, undergoing a kind of resurgence of interest, and personally, I think it’s incredibly unmoored to its time and place.

@Luke – I quite agree. While the show tries to get you to root for Walter White, it’s only a trick of perspective. For all his flaws, Hank is a pretty good cop. He also seems like a pretty good guy in general, and he’s being set up to be the hero (who will be hated by a majority of the BB fandom for bringing down Heisenberg). I’m excited to see how it all plays out.

“Some anti-heros work, but the level of hyprocrisy in this story line is unsettling that and other reasons made it hard for me to buy into”

Well, the stated point of BB is that the protagonist isn’t even really an anti-hero. The hypocrisy is entirely intentional. The point is to create a portrait of a man who is transforming into evil.

I do think a lot of people miss the point to a degree and think of him as being some kind of working class anti-hero, but that isn’t what he is or what he’s supposed to be. That’s the veneer, the more familiar story that we’re supposed to think we’re watching, while the writers keep pulling you back to the hypocrisy of it all. It’s easy to root for him, especially at first. But every time you sympathize, you are given more reminders that it isn’t so simple – he’s not just doing evil to do to survive or to provide for his family (which is a familiar anti-hero role), he’s doing it because of his pride. Which makes him less of an anti-hero and more of a villain protagonist.

Also I’m not really clear on what the message concerning a teacher turned crystal meth dealer should be?

Reach for your dreams?

Moreover, ‘Crime doesn’t pay’ is a pretty simplistic reduction of what went on in Breaking Bad. A much larger message has been related to the corrupting effects of pride.

The show definitely isn’t as nuanced as The Wire, but its meant to be more of a character study (I think Vince Gilligan has described the show as trying to portray turning Mr. Chips into Scarface) than a bleak depiction of the nature of the drug business.

“Well, the stated point of BB is that the protagonist isn’t even really an anti-hero. The hypocrisy is entirely intentional. The point is to create a portrait of a man who is transforming into evil.”

Well, the blatant hypocrisy certainly is. But the grander symbolics as demonstrated via many of the comments seem to garner more sympathy than warranted.

But I am not sure one can deny the anti-hero model. Whatever his issues at his previous post ego, anger what have you — and those are not really negatives in the corporate world — He is now, as a regular guy. Teaching and taking care of family. Most people settle and long for that. Care for my family and myself — happy. Then he was what is also a commonplace event in many lives — a catastrophic illness — suddenly for him he can no longer afford literally to be a regular guy.

I think of my 2002 crisis — what were the alternatives Certainly to toss it — and roll the dice in the high stakes (depending on how you play) of drug dealing. I have few doubts that many have garnered enough money to stake a life in some legal profession. He is before that decision an everyman white, black or brown.

And whether he is motivated by his imminent death, family survival and care, and even if motivated by self esteem issues — which of us are not — certainly minus a family that is what motivates me. The ever looming specter of failure of one’s enemies known or unknown winning —

Even an overative ego is not a negative. Some of the greatest innovations are born of ego. The only thing that countermands hero status is his choice of solution. I am think of the line from Sweeney Todd, “Desperate Times call for desperate solutions . . .”

laughing, I even once considered investing in internet porn — the most lucrative industry on the net I think, before it became common place. Just how desperate one becomes is always is that mix of the desperate times, buffetted against circumstance and our own moral code/ethics. I could not past my own code to so indulge. But what happens if I end living in my car again? Or on driving across country to look in on my dad — my car fails midway — or I get home and am unable to find work?
Moral code against the desperation of utter failure, hunger and shame of lousy son?

I am a prude — more than previously — Now I am a big prude so they say — overly moral, ‘overly’ concerned with ensuring moral —

I would dare say secretly, many might even wish we had the courage to break our mantle of whatever it is that prevents us taking a leap forward — and that’s what heros do. The anti-hero is that man or women we might otherwise admire save for their choices —

I was always of the opinion, that the meth, etc. were a convenient set piece. The show was really an examination of the process of Walter Mitty experiencing the Jekyll Hyde transformation, while living in the Albuquerque “fish” bowl.

Interesting that so many comments, and writers, refer to Walter White as a real person, and not the fictional character. Could it be that many, many people associate with Walter, and he-is-me mentality actually exists in our society?
After several decades of ‘dumb-WASP’ TELEVISION, it is really refreshing to see a show that actually offers an escape from the normal feminist creed that men are only essential for the propagation of our species, and women are the leaders of the family, bull crudd.
The drugs, drug war, DEA, are just the transportation method to reach the main goal of “I AM W.A.S.P…. HEAR ME ROAR”. And it is time more men take up the credo!

I never watched either BB or MM (Mad Men) in real time, but, thanks to Netflix, I’ve become a huge fan of both and have now seen all episodes. Giving up on inane network tv long ago has allowed me to do this. It seems to me that many of the commenters seem to be more perceptive than the essayist. To take one example, Gancarski’s comparing WW to an Ayn Rand hero (and I’m no fan of Rand) shows that he has no understanding of her writings, as she despised libertarians and was always against drugs. Also in his final sentence, Gancarski states that BB is “produced in cooperation with the Obama DEA.” He knows this, how?

Sorry to say that WASPs are certainly not poised to “roar” and maintain any kind of dominant or even safe position in this country on current trends. All native-born English-speaking people will be a minority, with native-born white people being a smaller minority than that, and WASPs being a smaller minority still. Not good, but very likely.

You are writing as if all drugs in the drug war are the same. Marijuana, which appears to have many beneficial uses and which is probably less harmful than many perfectly legal drugs, is not the same as methamphetamine. Widespread methamphetamine use has done nearly irreparable damage to rural communities throughout the United States, not to mention the destruction to individual persons and families. The same cannot be said for marijuana or marijuana users. To pretend they are the same or that have the same societal consequences, is simply intellectually dishonest.

You started losing me at the whole ‘Pulp Fiction’ is dated (yeah, in the same way other immortal classics like ‘The Maltese Falcon’ or ‘Chinatown’ are dated, sheesh) – but you really lost me when you based your entire article around Jesse’s remark about leading “ordinary, decent lives.” Have you seen the show? Seriously. Jesse was talking about leading a life of not killing anybody! It was the murders that made him distaste the business. Anyone with the capacity for common sense could see that and anyone with an ability for the slightest bit of critical thinking could see that if one took the ‘criminal’ element out of the meth business there would be no killing. That sounds like an argument against the government’s war on drugs to me.

In regards to the conventional wisdom of the DEA agents being the good guys and the dealers being evil – the reality of the matter is that meth is illegal, DEA agents are upholding the law, and the drug business is run by the cartels. Groups so evil they are chopping people’s heads off down in Mexico.
Whatever the American Conservative thinks should happen with the drug business, the reality is that those selling drugs, and especially meth, are acting as anarchists to society. The conventional wisdom is the actual reality.
And of course, one of the flaws of the show, as per the libertarian American Conservative is that it doesn’t highlight the side arguments like medical marijuana. That’s because there are no side arguments for meth. What doctor is advocating meth for medical usage? Perhaps the whole comparison to marijuana is in fact a specious one and saying its a fault of the show that it doesn’t switch to marijuana instead so that it could make a case for legalization of drugs, only really shows the bias of the author.
Meth is making its way through society leaving a lot of people in its wake, in a way that hasn’t happened with pot. So therefore, the case for legalization is different, and those pushing it may be morally suspect than the guy growing pot in his basement.

I have always though BB’s appeal was about being white guys who get over on the ‘the other.’Why play college English professor with your interpretation and try to complexify the show’s motivations, let’s be ‘simplistic’ to use the Professoriate’s pejorative phrase.
A couple of white guys(Walter White and Jesse Pinkman) despite their atavistic good-boy emotions and ordinary mistakes, manage to win at the drug game. This game is usually reserved for ‘the other’ to use another guilt-larded phrase of
academe. BB is a very rare media production where the white guys win. ‘Savages’ also, was a movie where (God forbid) the white guys won.
That is the appeal for probably 70% of the audience.
How weird, that they actually have a show where white guys pull it off(most of the time).
Check out the T-shirt with Walt, all it says is “I won.”